In patients with suspected paraneoplastic neurological disorders, PET/CT improves the detection of cancers when other screening test results are negative, as reported in an article published online January 11 in the Archives of Neurology. Cancers detected in a paraneoplastic context are often small and may not be identified by routine noninvasive methods. In this study conducted at the Mayo Clinic, MN, PET/CT found the suspicion of cancer in 22 out of 56 patients with clinically suspected paraneoplastic neurologic disorders. Ten (18%) of those cases were confirmed as cancer upon further evaluation; nine of those were early-stage cancers. These results support the use of PET/CT for detecting cancer in patients with paraneoplastic neurologic disorders.
The full article can be accessed at: http://archneur.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/2009.336?home
